


The Coffee Contract

by Atsadi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: (it's the spider the spider dies), Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Coffee Addict Tony Stark, Graphic Depiction of a Spider Attack, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Character Death, POV Tony Stark, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sneaky Steve Rogers, Timeline What Timeline, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 03:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atsadi/pseuds/Atsadi
Summary: “Spider,” Tony repeats, remembering vaguely what the guy had started babbling about as soon as Tony had opened the door. At the time he’d been occupied with blinking blearily at what he could only assume was a vivid, exhaustion-provoked hallucination of an Actual Angel descended before him. “In your bathtub.”





	The Coffee Contract

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, readers, as I make my first ever attempt at writing fiction in the present tense, since that’s what the cool kids are apparently doing now. That was a _shockingly_ hard transition to make.
> 
> This has been complete for, like, a year and half, and I’m not entirely sure why it didn’t get posted, the poor thing, except perhaps the bittersweet-ness of it all post-CACW. The subtitle for this one is: _“this is totally awkward considering before this the only interactions we’ve ever had have been casual nods to each other in the hallway but there’s a **huge fucking spider** in my bath tub and you seem like the friendly neighbor type please help me” au_ , per a prompt on [neurotoxia’s Tumblr](http://neurotoxia.tumblr.com/post/153748186473).
> 
> When/where/how is this set? Who knows! Mega-AU! Is it a no-powers AU? I’ll leave that up to you! Choose your own adventure!
> 
> Enjoy~

This is a _lot_ of information to take in so early on a Saturday.

“I really am sorry…” says the vision in front of him, starting to gently and charmingly shift his weight from foot to foot. (Sadly, he seems to think better of it when the towel slips tantalizingly low on his hipbones and has to be immediately grasped in the name of public decency.)

As if his eyes are operating with a mind of their own, Tony’s stare falls slowly, inexorably, from the man’s beautiful face to his beautiful stomach. He had never thought a stomach could be beautiful before. Sexy, sure. Flirty in the right shirt, hell yes. But dear god—it’s not even the heroic six pack that’s doing it for him, because it’s not like he’s never seen one of those before. The guy’s hips are even narrower than Tony’s, which—taking into account the fact that his shoulders are probably _twice_ the width of Tony’s—is doing a pretty good job of detonating the few remaining cells in his brain.

“You said that already,” Tony strains out from a cacophony of inappropriate thoughts.

“Are you?”

He successfully drags his eyes back up to the man’s face, feeling like a tool and a complete creeper but lacking the capacity at pre-6 a.m. to actually… stop being so creepy. “Are I?”

“… Free?” his neighbor says in a tone of mild concern, fingers tightening in the fluff of his towel.

Tony blinks slowly at him. Well, he supposes staring helplessly at the guy’s bright blue eyes is better than gawping at his happy trail. But seriously: nobody’s eyelashes are that gorgeous in real life. It must be the lighting in this stupid hallway.

He’s seen this particular neighbor before, but only ever in passing. Most of Tony’s time in the hall between their apartments is spent scurrying between his door and the building’s front entrance in varying states of panic. Not to mention the fact that the guy keeps horrendous hours—out of the apartment before Tony is conscious, as far as he can tell, and returning either long before or long after Tony does. Tony has only seen him a handful of times, and has always been given a polite smile to nod at as congenially as he can manage.

He’s barely even noticed that the guy is _hot_ before now, and that’s starting to seem _criminally negligent_.

Tony recognizes that his brain is malfunctioning even as he speaks. He can almost feel the wires being crossed somewhere between _this is the most beautiful man I have ever seen_ , the guy’s urgent little _are you free?_ (half-whispered so as not to disturb their neighbors who are, presumably, as dead to the world as they should all be at the absolute ass-crack of dawn on a Saturday), the towel that seems to be making a concerted break for freedom down the guy’s narrow hips, and the tragic lack of caffeine in Tony’s bloodstream.

The words escape: “Actually, I’ll cost you one cup of coffee, gorgeous.”

 _Well, then_. Tony’s eyes fly wide as soon as the sentence is finished, mirrored immediately by the baby blues opposite him. Whatever proto-teenage hormones have kept Tony frozen in place from the moment he opened his door to find this Adonis until now… they dissipate all at once with a shock of embarrassment. He slaps a hand unthinkingly over his eyes and ends up slamming his glasses— _hard_ —into the bridge of his nose. He groans _emphatically_.

Just before he can make an excuse for himself (hopefully concerning the hour and not the guy’s heartbreakingly lovely eyes), the man in his doorway snickers. Snickers unashamedly, right in Tony’s face, after pounding on his door and waking him up at this ungodly time of morning to ask him for help with… something… and, god, what an _asshole_.

Tony is smitten.

“I can do that,” the guy says with a grin.

Tony perks up with a grin of his own, ever-so-subtly adjusting his glasses. Then he narrows his eyes in concern. “What have I agreed to, exactly?”

The man's light blush returns, and Tony’s entire being feels like it’s lighting up along with it.

“Spider,” his neighbor mutters, and right. That sort-of explains the towel and the dripping hair and the water droplets trailing down over his taut, rippling— _nope_ , eyes up top, Stark.

“Spider,” Tony repeats, remembering vaguely what the guy had started babbling about as soon as Tony had opened the door. At the time he’d been occupied with blinking blearily at what he could only assume was a vivid, exhaustion-provoked hallucination of an Actual Angel descended before him. “In your bathtub.”

Which is how Tony finds himself in his superhumanly attractive neighbor’s apartment, being shown into the little bathroom while wearing nothing more than his Velma Dinkley glasses, ratty U.S.A.F. sweatpants (technically, nobody can _prove_ they were stolen from Rhodey’s apartment), The Slippers, and an ancient M.I.T. sweatshirt that had been dredged from somewhere in his nest of laundry when he’d heard the increasingly persistent knocking on his apartment door. Or, at least, after he’d eventually realized the knocking wasn’t part of some terrible BFG-type nightmare Pepper’d had funneled through his window in an attempt to make him keep normal human hours. Somehow, after everything, he wouldn’t put it past her.

 _Spider in the bathtub indeed_ , Tony muses while peering at the beastly thing sitting nonchalantly on top of his neighbor’s drain. If it were any later in the day he’d probably be horrified at the sight of its chunky, fuzzy legs hooked over the entire span of the metal, but as far as he can tell his emotions don’t fully load until either noon or the third cup of coffee. Ah well, there’ll always be time later to be horrified. Preferably when his hot neighbor isn’t within shrieking range.

Then again. _This_ neighbor specifically—for all his six-foot-plus Herculean stature—is _hiding_ just outside the door to the bathroom and refusing to put even one toe over the threshold, which Tony manages to find both hilarious and obscurely charming despite himself. But no, he supposes Cherry Pie really has no room to judge him.

“Got a paper towel?” he calls out. _Or a machete?_ he does not.

“Yeah—yeah, sure,” comes the flustered response, followed by the sound of bare feet padding away towards the kitchen, then padding quickly back.

“I’m Tony,” Tony blurts as he takes the wad of paper towels from the man’s hand, reaching cautiously around the door frame. It feels, perversely, like a little a burst of energy travels between them at the brush of their fingers, and pulls the clumsy introduction from him almost against his will.

“Steve,” the guy replies, sounding wryly amused.

It’s an odd name for a demigod— _Steve_ —but Tony supposes he has to at least _try_ to fit in with the mere mortals.

The spider puts up a worthy fight, which Tony decides to immediately forget as soon as the deed is done. He twitches once, violently, from his head to his toes, trying to remove the sensation of the monstrous creature making a break for freedom up his arm.

“Target eliminated,” Tony calls out to Steve over the sound of the toilet flushing. “You can get back in the shower now.” No, wait, no. “Once I’m—you know, not right _now_ , I don’t mean you should just—get naked… I mean, you _can_ , there’s no—” He skids to a verbal halt, blinking at himself in the mirror over the sink in utter horror. He hasn’t been this useless at conversation with attractive people since he was _fourteen_ , dammit. “You promised me coffee.”

“So I did,” Steve replies, crooking his head around the door and peering suspiciously down the length of his nose into the tub, then cursorily examining the rest of the small bathroom—as if Tony might be lying, and the spider might be crouching in wait for him behind the toilet or under the striped bath mat. Tony watches him inspect the terrain with a smile threatening at the edges of his mouth. After a moment, Steve turns his stare onto Tony, and a nervous little grin appears. “Should probably just get on with the day, really. I don’t think I’m ready to go back in the water just yet.”

Tony snorts, then has to struggle against his face’s sudden urge to fall. He supposes that’s fair. He hadn’t said he needed the promised coffee immediately. Why the hell _would_ gorgeous Steve want his reclusive, staring, barely-functional neighbor to hang around in his apartment now that he’s done as asked and slain the heinous beast? Steve had probably thought he was joking about the coffee fee.

He hopes his smile doesn’t look as brittle as it feels as he obligingly ducks out of the bathroom, and hustles for the front door.

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve says as he passes. The words sound uncomfortable in his mouth—Tony’s name in particular—and Tony almost cringes.

“No problem,” he calls, spinning on his heel to look back at him. Steve is still standing there just outside the bathroom in that damn towel, damp and glistening but at least no longer dripping all over the carpet. His drying hair has lightened from unidentifiably dark to bright gold, and he looks so damn awkward standing there waiting for Tony to clear out of his apartment.

Tony’s brain reminds him nastily that he’s wearing a sweatshirt probably as old as Steve is, and the gag red-and-gold monster feet slippers gifted to him by Rhodey last Christmas.

It’s not like Tony can’t get attractive people interested in him, or people far younger than he is, for that matter, but that usually has to do with enormous amounts of work on his part paired with the right context. Steve has more or less caught him with his pants down, and Tony is well-aware he isn’t all that impressive when he’s not being full-blown _Tony Stark_ out in a bar or at a gala or something, and these days even _that_ doesn’t carry much weight. _Here_ he’s just the weirdo neighbor in an ancient sweatshirt and ridiculous slippers, and god, he’d forgotten how much he hates it when people’s disappointment finally appears. When they notice that he’s actually just a dull, dorky man not at all as advertised by the magazines, and not something they’re ever likely to come back to. It’s so much easier to just duck out before it gets to that point.

Stupid goddamn spider. If it weren’t already dead he’d be wishing a fate worse than death upon it for its meddling.

He slinks back into his apartment without another word, with the intent to simply crawl back into bed and lie there until the sun is actually in the sky. But this very reasonable plan is derailed half-way through execution by another loud knock on the door. Tony groans into the pillow and outright hopes, for the first time in his life, that an extremely hot man is not on the other side of the door waiting for him.

No such luck. Steve is standing there looking considerably more peppy than he had earlier (after he’d shamefacedly trekked over to ask the neighbor he’d barely exchanged three words with up until that point to rescue him from the wannabe-Aragog hanging out in his tub).

“Did I forget something?” Tony asks. It’s the only plausible explanation he can come up with for Steve’s return to his doorstep. He doesn’t think he’d brought anything but his tired self down the hall, but then again, _tired_.

“Coffee,” Steve says, with a bit of an odd edge to his voice. “Aren’t you… I thought you were getting ready?”

“… Ready?” Tony parrots, squinting at Steve as if he could summon an explanation if he only stared hard enough.

Steve flaps a hand up and down at Tony’s embarrassing attire. He hasn’t even changed out of The Slippers. “To go—for coffee?”

Wait, they’re going for coffee? When had that happened? Tony had teasingly asked for it and Steve… is possibly at some point going to go reluctantly make him some coffee as payment for his contract killing of Shelob… Is that not what’s happening here?

Apparently not, because Steve is now dressed and pressed and put together, and, well… he’s still incredibly pretty, but Tony at least has some idea now of how he’d missed the incredible hotness up until this point. Somewhere between the checkered button-down and the pleated khakis lies the answer. But mostly now he looks at Steve and sees earnest blue eyes, a crooked grin, and a fetching phobia of spiders scrabbling up his leg while wet and naked, and oh god, his brain sticks for a moment on _wet and naked Steve_.

“We’re going for coffee?” Tony deduces brilliantly.

For all of five seconds, Steve looks completely taken aback. As if he’s just as goddamn confused as Tony is—which is bullshit, because there is just no way that’s possible. Then he holds up a hand like he wants to stop Tony from butting in (Tony has no such intention, to be sure. He’s still trying to multiply his Steve-year-old sweater by Steve’s shoulder-to-hips ratio and get _coffee_ ), and opens his plush mouth.

“I’m taking you for coffee,” Steve says firmly. And isn’t that right at the corner of _…huh?_ and _hallelujah!_?

“Okay,” Tony agrees, because why the hell not? But also, “Why?” because he just can’t leave well enough alone.

“Because I’ve finally managed to ask you, and I really hope you’ll come get coffee with me,” is the ridiculous response, and whatever nervousness there had been on Steve’s face before has been replaced with steely determination.

Finally? He’s “finally” managed to ask him? Steve has _wanted_ to ask him out for… a time?

Tony blinks at him owlishly. “I like coffee.”

“You look like you need it, too,” Steve smirks, the ass.

“I’ll have you know I was up late doing Very Important Things,” Tony notes imperiously, and Steve’s smirk only grows wider.

“I look forward to hearing all about it over coffee.”

“Top Secret Things,” Tony sniffs, picking at the hem of his sweatshirt.

“I know a little about Top Secret things,” Steve replies, somehow managing to give the impression of a saucy wink without actually winking at all. Not a flirtation Tony has ever heard before but, in fairness, he also isn’t sure why they’re still standing in his doorway negotiating this very appealing prospect.

A question slouches up from the back of Tony’s brain and, lacking a filter, he asks as casual as you please: “Is this a date?”

“Yes,” Steve nods firmly. “If you’re interested.”

“If I’m interested,” Tony repeats hazily. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Steve’s smile falters, but he keeps it up. “Good enough for me.”

He’s clearly missed something there, but Tony just cocks his head and jams a finger into the middle of Steve’s chest, where it presses against a long necklace. He’s willing to bet a ghastly amount of money he doesn’t actually have that it’s a set of dog tags. “Wait here, soldier.”

When he reopens the door a brief moment later, wearing jeans and a jacket over a reasonably clean Guns N’ Roses t-shirt, glasses-b-gone contacts in and hair more or less tamed, Steve is still standing obligingly at attention. Tony grins up at him and gestures out into the hallway. “Lead the way, fair damsel.”

Steve lets out an unbecoming snort, and oh, Tony is unreasonably charmed by this guy’s _everything_.

“Careful—I might swoon on you,” Steve teases, leaning in to loom ominously over him.

“If you try it—” Tony notes, looking Steve’s bulk up and down out of the corner of his eye as he quickly locks his apartment door. “—I’ll go down like cotton candy.”

“I like cotton candy,” Steve shrugs, and Tony bursts out laughing.

“There are so many jokes, Steve,” Tony shakes his head, falling in step with him as they make their way to the outer door. “So many terrible jokes. I don’t know if your delicate constitution can handle it.”

Steve puffs up. “That spider was a man-eater, and you know it. Besides…”

They’ve reached the main doors out of the building and Steve steps forward to effortlessly pull the right one open, as though it doesn’t weigh as much as Tony does—only to hold out a hand and indicate that Tony go ahead of him.

“… I figured it would be as good an introduction as any.”

Tony pauses with one foot in the air, half-way out the door, then continues with an arch glance over his shoulder. “You aren’t even afraid of spiders, are you, you sneak?”

Steve beams and draws alongside Tony as they stride down the hectic New York street. “Terrified. But not so terrified that I needed to run over to your apartment in nothing but a _towel_.”

 _The crafty little_ —Tony has an almost manic grin on his face, he’s sure, since he can’t possibly help it. But from somewhere small and desperate, too scarred over to let this person he likes turn around and whip the rug from beneath his feet without at least _some_ early warning, out comes a serious question. “You really sat over there scheming how to get a conversation out of me, and that was the best you came up with? Asking me to play exterminator?”

Steve flushes lightly but shrugs without obvious shame. “I don’t do this much.”

He’s telling the truth, as absurd as it seems. He looks too awkward to be lying. And, technically, Tony does do this a lot— _this_ being getting dates and starting conversations with total strangers, with little to copious amounts of actual preparation beforehand. He thinks for a moment about mentioning it, but the idea feels a little sour. Steve’s not someone he just met in a bar. They probably aren’t going to go and have wild ape sex back in either of their apartments once they check off the formality of a date—Tony can feel take-it-slow vibes practically broadcasting from the guy.

But this particular situation? “Me neither.” Coffee in the dead hours of the morning with his arachnophobic and unbelievably cheeky neighbor? Definitely breaking new ground.

There’s a decent, _small_ coffee joint just a few blocks down from their building, and they let the conversation lapse comfortably as they make their way over to it—Steve probably senses that Tony will be more coherent company once he’s been sufficiently caffeinated. There’s only a small line before the till at this heinous hour, nobody even gives Tony a second look while they wait, and soon they’re seated at a cozy two-person table in the corner of the room.

“Been here before?” Tony asks, inhaling the aroma of his coffee and enjoying its excellence even before it even touches his tongue.

“Yeah,” Steve nods, drumming his fingers in a line down the side of his cup. “Got a friend who works here and gives me probably-illicit discounts. Besides, I enjoy being a man of habit, sometimes.”

“You going to make a habit out of greeting me every morning in a towel?” Tony teases, raising his cup to his lips.

And Steve shrugs, looking so nonchalant that Tony just _knows_ something devastatingly snarky is about to leave his mouth. “Towel optional.”

Even having expected it, Tony chokes on his coffee. Steve laughs brightly at him, and this is hands-down the weirdest, greatest first date Tony has ever been on. It’s still pretty much dark outside, they haven’t even started their coffees yet, and he already can’t wait for the next time they meet up. He beams over at Steve, who is flushed and actually not wearing it very well, all ruddy and flustered—which is even more endearing than his general perfect gorgeousness. Tony smiles at him as un-sappily as he can, under the circumstances.

“What _will_ the neighbors think?” Tony winks, finally taking a drink of his coffee and reveling for a minute in the experience. He knows it’s largely in his head—take that, Colonel Reason—but he still enjoys the phantom sensation of waking up for real when the coffee hits his cells.

“Only one neighbor I want to impress,” Steve retorts, smiling cheerfully and guilelessly over the table at Tony.

He has no artifice in him—not a speck that Tony can detect. Not about his interest in Tony. He’s just so unlike any of the other people Tony normally finds himself in these situations with. He’s seen Tony at his most caveman-like phases of the morning and evening at least once a week for almost a year, when grunts in recognition of pleasant greetings are the best he can dredge up. And somehow, in all that grunting, Steve saw something in Tony that he liked well enough to engineer probably the most ridiculous, spectacularly unromantic meeting between them as humanly possible. And he admits to it with no shame—only open glee that his terrible tactics have worked.

Then again, a soldier knows how to use his arsenal to devastating effect, and Steve can scarcely go wrong with those killer abs and eyelashes. _Reel ‘em in_ , Tony thinks, _then dazzle them once they’re too curious to leave_. It’s a tactic he knows well… but it feels different somehow, with Steve. He’s not trying to razzle dazzle Tony with money or gadgets or a lifetime’s worth of bedroom skills. He’s just… being himself. What a concept.

Tony stares at him for a little while in silence, wondering how they had gotten to this point so quickly and so easily. For him, it was just about unheard-of. It must all be Steve.

Steve, who’s terrified of spiders, and yet still had the presence of mind to waddle out into the hall to set his devious schemes in motion when the opportunity presented itself, confronted with just such a monster during his ungodly early morning shower. And really, who wouldn’t appreciate someone with such a cunning mind as that? Tony loves a sexy body, but he might fall in love with a sexy brain.

Across the table, Steve is still smiling crookedly at him; he’s so obviously pleased with himself and with Tony, with the success of his hilarious plan to get Tony hooked in. Steve and his eyelashes—which are, he notes, as beautiful here as they had been in the hallway outside his apartment. Tony has no idea why Steve had picked him, of all people, to try to impress.

But hot damn he did a fine job.

Tony tips his cup in a flirty salute. “Mission successful. Although, technically, I think I asked _you_ out.”

“I don’t think it counts if you didn’t know you were asking,” Steve retorts, taking a swig of his coffee.

“Of course it counts. It just means I’m a genius even when my higher functions aren’t awake yet.”

“Sure, nothing to do with my brilliant tactical mind.”

“Which decided brilliantly to blindside me with your tactical pecs.”

“Are your ‘higher functions’ up yet?”

“Why? Going to try and prove you can outsmart me when we’re both conscious? And don’t think I didn’t hear you making a dick joke at me in this highly public venue—”

“I really don’t think anyone’s paying us any attention. And yes, I’m going to prove it. Look: give me your hand.”

Tony’s eyebrow rises, wondering if he’s about to get his palm read or something equally kooky, but he gamely holds out a hand palm-up over the table as he takes another gulp of coffee. He knows he hasn’t stopped grinning and staring at Steve’s glittering eyes since pretty much the moment they sat down, but he really doesn’t care.

Steve takes his hand and gives it a cursory look, then cups his fingers and palm around it and sets it casually on the table, all wrapped up in his own. Tony looks down to where they are now blatantly holding hands, and doesn’t bother to suppress a delighted laugh at the guy’s sheer nerve.

“That’s not tactics!” he points out, a ludicrous giggle lurking in his voice. “That was the least tactical move I’ve ever seen.”

Steve just smirks at him, rubbing the pad of his thumb over Tony’s knuckles.

From the other end of the store, presumably from behind the counter, there comes a loud whoop of glee—Tony looks up in time to see a young man with long brown hair and an apron slap a hand down cheerfully on the shoulder of the man who’d taken their drink orders. Long-hair hollers something like “Finally! Damn, Stevie!” before the cashier hushes him with a gap-toothed grin.

Steve says nothing at the outburst, but does turn a lovely shade of pink. Since he’s still caressing Tony’s knuckles, and Tony is sipping from a cup of coffee he only now realizes has _the hot neighbor_ written on it in a looping scribble, it isn’t that hard to figure out what just happened. Steve is still beaming at him, and he hasn’t let go of his hand. He’s obviously both pleased and embarrassed by his friends’ antics, which is oddly sweet on a guy who looks like he could take out anyone who crosses him with one punch (as long as that someone is not a spider, of course).

Ah, well. Tony’s hardly going to argue. He supposes he can stand being outfoxed, just this once.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post](http://atsadi.tumblr.com/post/167847030760/the-coffee-contract-atsadi-multifandom).


End file.
